The Japanese Inspired Garden of Chauncey Freeman Part 2

02:45 Garden Portal
04:32 Garden Refuge
08:53 Spruce Waterfall
13:10 The Crescendo
17:05 Winter Hummingbird Heaven

This is the second part to Chauncey Freeman’s incredible Pacific Northwest garden beyond the Ivy Slope! In Part 1 we toured the front yard and it’s more stylized Japanese Inspired Garden. Now for Part 2, we are in the backyard, where the garden has a much more wild feel to it, while still managing to absolutely impress and astound.

The conifers are so expertly arranged, the grasses so lush and tranquil, the places of refuge are a soft cushion from whence one may behold the beauty of the garden in comfort and warmth. I am so thrilled to have been invited to tour this garden, and in turn share it with you!

This is in Eugene, Oregon, Zone 8, filmed in Early November.

Find Chauncey on instagram: @5thseasongarden
For a deeper dive into the insect sculptures dotted around the garden, check out @sean_goddard_insects, also on instagram.

If you entered Cameraman Franklin’s Mushroom Giveaway, thank you! Come December 1st he will be reaching out to the winner, chosen randomly. Best of luck!

Thank you for your support and for sharing these garden tours with your garden-loving friends.

Warmest regards on this blustery, late November Oregon day.
Donna

great to meet you Chanty nice to meet you 
Donna well welcome to the Garden I moved uh to this house let’s see 10 years 
ago um in 2014 and it was basically a traditional ranch style home um it had a lawn in 
the front a small lawn in back and a big overgrown slope um that was filled with blackberries and 
some giant red endrant when I first planted this it looked pretty pitiful I I really did it on kind 
of a Sho string um it’s grown in very nicely now you’d never know that um but when you do plant 
with conifers I think it’s really nice that most of them are dwarf um and that’s because you get 
this longer period of enjoyment out of it I I’ve been a landscape designer for the past 15 years 
and kind of one of my favorite things to do when I see plants that look good with other plants 
that’s their companion I’ve always thought of planting like does it have good color is it 
Evergreen does it Bloom does it have spring color fall color and like the more things that 
a plant can check off in that those categories it’s like the better the plant so as we make our 
way back here um all the paths on the property are this kind of open crushed rock um which allows 
it the water to drain right through um and in the front I’ve bordered it with steel and then as we 
transition to the backyard I bordered them with larger chunks of the salt so you’ll kind of notice 
that transition as we move around the corner here so I envisioned this space it’s just the little 
kind of service area between the house and the property line I wanted um some beautiful Japanese 
maples and you’re actually catching them at a great time cuz they’re all in color right now 
um but they look really beautiful from these windows um which are a couple of bedrooms and 
a bathroom okay the scale here it just it just makes me feel um you know like I’m going into this 
vast Wonderland with like the little Temple there and then you know in the distance the fire going 
oh this one’s so beautiful so this is an Oriental spruce um called Firefly um so it’s actually a 
dwarf um slow growing and it’s a conifer that can take full sun but here I’m actually growing 
it in quite a bit of shade other than that kind of blast of Western Sun at the end of the day nice 
did you take any inspiration from any different culturals or historical Garden I did it’s a it’s 
a Japanese inspired Garden um so kind of like our counterpart um as far as growing regions is Japan 
um so a lot of these plants um that are kind of more special and like the Japanese maples and 
a lot of the conifers those are native to Japan um so yes I was definitely influenced heavily 
by Japanese design and I’m just curious like other than the plants like what about the design 
itself is Japanese inspired yeah so the path um I kind of took that cue from Japanese design 
um and then kind of using this sense of scale and different spaces that you can go and kind of 
seek out Refuge so that’s a very Japanese thing like taking the long path windy path to a tea 
house where You’ get like some sort of view over a Japanese Garden or a rice field yeah um and I 
actually have been to Japan and studied um when I was in the landscape architecture program that 
was part of our study abroad um so I was able to spend six weeks there and kind of see all these 
Gardens firsthand um amazing yeah give me a lot of inspiration yeah well you’ve done did a 
great job of bringing it home so this is um a real special spot and so this whole backyard um 
this was where the lawn used to be right here in this flat portion okay and then this was kind of 
the overgrown Blackberry Hill oh and then the only thing that has stayed are these two thread Branch 
Cyprus right here so there’s two of them oh um so everything else um it was pretty much a blank 
slate um they on out and I’ve added everything but this was kind of the opportunity spot that 
I was trying to get to um where you’re protected up there um but you also have this kind of 
fun view over the top of the house um and so this Vine that’s covering the structure um is 
a white wisteria and you’ve got this moment in time and it’s usually late April um where 
that whole thing is just covered in these dripping white Recs of flowers and it’s just 
like perfumed it perfumes the whole backyard um it’s absolutely incredible oh amazing can 
we take this yeah let’s take the the path less travel stop and have a a little moment in time so there’s a couple of different challenges 
uh with this site uh one is clay soil um so I had to be very careful not to compact it and only 
worked kind of in that real special time when it’s after winter but before Summer and the the 
soil is very soft but not sticky so I did a lot of the the heavy construction bringing in these big 
boulders um during that time and then drainage so we’re kind of on a downhill slope so these paths 
in the backyard actually function as French drains so underneath all this gravel um is some big 
perforated pipe um so that creates there’s two different sections here um where the water is 
drained into those pipes um just so it’s not eroding the hillside uh during the winter time um 
the other thing that I’ll mention um there are no fences um keeping things out of the backyard 
um so we have deer tons of deer up here um and that was a huge challenge not not so much for what 
they eat um so most of these plants are naturally deer resistant M but when the Bucks are in velvet 
they’ll come and they’ll just rub their horns on like anything that’s substantial um so I’ve lost 
so many plants really um and they’ll just like strip the bark off a tree you can see some up here 
that are scarred um that have healed um but that’s been another big challenge of this have you used a 
lot of cages cages and then I’ve actually sprayed um some cayenne pepper um mixed with a little bit 
of pine sap um so that sticks to the leaves and they don’t like the smell and they try to avoid 
that so when things were very fresh and first planted I used that technique as well and then are 
they kind of past that phase of of um potentially you know getting a lot of things are everything’s 
grown in enough um over this was like the first section of the garden that I I tackled so this 
is about 10 years old now um and basically it’s kind of like natural selection now if a plant 
dies then it’s out of here and the garden’s mature enough to basically hold its own at 
this point yeah shed a tear and move on yep exactly so these are Weeping Blue Spruce and 
this was probably the biggest feature of the backyard I really wanted a pond a koi pond but 
I didn’t want to contend with the leaves and the raccoons um and just the mess and all the work 
so what this is if you look here it starts here with um the candy can’s white fur oh I see it 
and then the wean Blue Spruce is here and then I’m standing on the bridge and then it continues 
down so this is my blue waterfall um that’s done with plants and not water oh I love it and it’s 
kind of like you know rapid because of just the dynamic pretty turbulent movement of it yeah that 
is I’ve got this one key view from uh the kitchen sink window and this stream lines up perfectly 
with that W and did you PL it like that I did okay yep that’s where I wanted my waterfall in 
the springtime when they push New Growth you can see this is this year’s amount of New Growth this 
comes out this most vibrant kind of powder blue and it’s just really quite a quite a scene in the 
springtime it’s very obvious what the intended effect was cuz you know the winter RI or the 
spring rivers are always a little bit more hectic yep exactly yeah and then the the bridge too yeah 
just to kind of further enhance like the idea that you’re going over water and so in other Seasons 
um there’s a bunch of beautiful um tree pies um which are Chinese uh Japanese natives um and so 
they really kind of add a pop of spring color in here um but ferns grasses um there’s some really 
beautiful Japanese Iris um bunch of different clumps kind of adds to that grassy effect as well 
in the bloom in Spring this is a really fun grass it’s an aorus ogon so it’s the the yellow yellow 
Sweet Flag grass and it these were just little 4-in pots when I planted them and they have just 
taken over and they love kind of that water that’s coming down the Hillside and they just thrive in 
the the wet good clay soil and and I’m glad that you’re you know they’re taking over and you’re 
happy with it yeah it’s a it’s a good taking over you can see like there I’ve got a drift here the 
drift here and then they’ll where the whole path is you and then this one is adding so much with 
its height and color so that’s um a flowering Cherry called little twist um so a real sweet 
tiny um white pink flower in the springtime and then this beautiful fall color right now 
beautiful and then some really dwarf conifers in this section as well y I love the Korean fur 
yeah that’s um a super dwarf selection uh called Icebreaker um so it has that really white 
underside of the needle and it’s almost like Twisted um and it only grows like an inch or two 
a year so those are pretty old little specimens p so if we walk down here the design intent was 
to create this dramatic kind of Crescendo of landscape space wow from the house um so you 
have this little private Courtyard enjoy a a hot tub every now and again and then boom you get 
the the tall conifers um I’ve got these um colner um Aspen trees right here so they’re turning the 
beautiful yellow right now in the fall and I don’t know if you’ve noticed but this neighborhood 
has overhead power lines so kind of part of the consideration also for the cner conifers was to 
grow something that can give me a lot of height um without interfering with those power lines so 
it’s kind of a a double feature and so that really affected how you planted too H so right underneath 
of them like I had to make sure I wasn’t getting anything that was going a grow Too Tall and then 
the things that are beside them I had to make sure it’s not a fulls siiz tree that’s going to get 
too wide is this sh shiriki yes so the the lion’s head Japanese maple e pum shishira beautiful and 
it will that get much bigger do you know uh so they will um that was actually kind of an Impulse 
plant um before the Aspens were there to give me a little bit more privacy from the hot tub um cuz 
the neighboring house up there um I just didn’t have that privacy yet um so that actually went 
in not originally as planned but nevertheless a beautiful tree and then it just like adds to this 
you know you have this whole habitat here yeah so this is um probably one of my favorite little 
spaces um so these picture plants um the darling t is um a really beautiful chartreuse screen in 
the springtime and they thrive in the the wet kind of Boggy environment of the The Fountain and 
then the the dragonfly too is that your original dragonfly you telling us about the original uh 
dragonfly sculpture that caught my attention and I just had to have for the garden um 
done by an artist on Salt Spring Island and then these are a couple I’ve got some glass 
Cattails kind of further enhancing the the body Vibe and then this is blue star creeper 
um so this ground cover is um a carpet of little tiny blue flowers in springtime and 
then this Vine that’s um lost its Fage this is more of the Virginia creeper um so my 
way of disguising this kind of all right looking concrete wall um was with this Vine and 
it’s lush green um throughout uh the growing Seasons I’ve kind of trained it across those 
steps and so it’s growing on this companion but a great way to add a green screen texure 
to a concrete surface yeah absolutely and then these giant ferns are such a good choice for this 
spot yeah again kind of making that another layer to that space uhhuh um and then I’ve got these 
um Pacific fire Vine Maples um so it’s our uh Native Vine Maple but this particular variety 
has the um the red uh stems so you kind of get that pop of red uh during the winter after the 
the tree loses its Le do you have I I haven’t noticed many containers I guess a few down there 
there’s a few and then just this this little guy here yeah I used to have some bigger trees that 
just got too big and that just got replanted this year and this is the the blacka and then this is 
the dwarf eix um called Green pagota I believe beautiful another one of my favorite um bushes is 
the winter sun Mahonia okay um I really love its Evergreen shape um and then what’s most special 
about it I think um is that when it blooms which is kind of winter and it’s just starting now um 
it’s great food for the hummingbirds so like I’ve got a pair that kind of um they will come and use 
the fountain every morning right there next to the hot tub and then I like to think of this as their 
their food source during the winter keeping them around oh that’s lovely and so much easier than 
you know refilling a hummingbird feeder exactly do you have to cut these back or so these at all 
when we’ve had that really hard um cold weather and when we get snow sometimes these will break 
um and I’ll just go back and I’ll cut it back to a stock and boom it’ll send out new shoots 
so they’re a very resilient very hearty shrub some and they’re a little Pokey right little Pokey 
yep yep that’s um part of the deer deer resistant landscape right so if it pokes us it’s going to 
poke them too it’s good to remember I love the shape of this is this another white pine so this 
is um actually a Japanese red pine um called densa Flora um so it creates this umbrella shape it’s a 
multi- stem and as the tree ages it’s supposed to get this more red exfoliating bark oh okay see it 
starting kind of when I planted it it was shorter and almost a tabletop um so it was cultured 
that way and I’ve been letting it kind of grow and I thin out um kind of the the dieback that’s 
happening it’s needing to have that done again what’s the hardest part about maintaining a garden 
uh such as this one so this Garden is actually it’s very low maintenance um for the summer and 
kind of into the the dry part of spring um where it does have mainten is coming into this season 
I like to clean up the leaves which you wouldn’t have to do but then you’re kind of cutting back 
the perennials um and the grasses and at that time I decide all right this tree needs to be thinned 
out I’m trumping around in the dirt let’s get in there and clean that tree out at the same time 
um and then along that note the the Wisteria is actually the highest maintenance uh plant in 
the garden um I have to trim that one uh once in in the spring and then once in the winter um 
it’s an extremely vigorous grower but I like to think that it’s uh worth the extra word yeah 
I mean just the way you talk about it it sounds like it’s really special and I’ll have to get some 
pictures of that to include it’s very impressive so I’m just so grateful that you invited us to 
come over the fence and appreciate this beautiful Japanese inspired Garden so thank you so much John 
yeah you’re welcome it was a pleasure having you